Undermining the Kremlin

Winner of the 2001 Stuart L. Bernath Book Prize (Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations)

Following the Allied victory in World War II, the United States turned its efforts to preventing the spread of Communism beyond Eastern Europe. Gregory Mitrovich argues, however, that the policy of containment was only the first step in a clandestine campaign to destroy Soviet power. Drawing on recently declassified U.S. documents, Mitrovich reveals a range of previously unknown covert actions launched during the Truman and Eisenhower administrations. Through the aggressive use of psychological warfare, officials sought to provoke political crisis among key Soviet leaders, to incite nationalist tensions within the USSR, and to foment unrest across Eastern Europe.

Mitrovich demonstrates that inspiration for these efforts did not originate within the intelligence community, but with individuals at the highest levels of policymaking in the U.S. government. National security advisors, Mitrovich asserts, were adamant that the Soviet threat must be eliminated so the United States could create a stable, prosperous international system. Only the shifting balance of power caused by the development of Soviet nuclear weapons forced U.S. leaders to abandon their goal of subverting the Soviet system and accept a world order with two rival superpowers.

"Mitrovich has written a solid account of U.S. national security policy toward the Soviet Union during the Truman and Eisenhower eras."—Choice, September 2000

Undermining the Kremlin

"Readers interested in the strategic implications of nuclear weapons during the early Cold War will find Undermining the Kremlin instructive."—Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Undermining the Kremlin

"Mitrovich's perspective is refreshing and clear."—Orbis, Winter 2001

Undermining the Kremlin

"Mitrovich makes a good case that aggressive covert attempts to weaken the Soviet system were a more significant and integrated part of high-level U.S. thinking than has generally been recognized. In the process he has produced a wealth of new research on key individuals, important policy debates, and incessant bureaucratic battles, which will be useful for anyone studying this critical period of the Cold War."—Journal of Cold War Studies

Undermining the Kremlin

"Mitrovich challenges the interpretations of both more orthodox historians and the new left. . . . The book makes a valuable contribution to the emerging new history of the origins of the Cold War."—International History Review, June 2001

Experts

"Undermining the Kremlin is a stimulating and eye-opening account of American grand strategy—especially 'psychological warfare'—during the Truman and early Eisenhower years."—Marc Trachtenberg, University of Pennsylvania